Hip-hop stars, like memoirists, are often accused of embellishing their criminal histories to seem "authentic," but the story of how Senegal-raised Akon manufactured an elaborate fake past replete with car chases, a high-end car theft ring, prison rivalries, and a fictional 75-year sentence that somehow got reduced to two fictional years all so you'd never forget the song "Smack Dat" is... amazing. [The Smoking Gun]

Aliza Shvarts has been obsessed with her uterine lining ever since the Ming Dynasty. [Little Red Book]

The Pope met with five or six of the 1,000 known victims of pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese. [AP]

Sometimes Barack Obama gets crap for all his subtle, highfalutin references to controversial thinkers like Marx, but this time... from the bleachers they screamin.' [Attackerman]

"Tina Feytigue": Is it worth the fact that we like her a little bit less right now if it spreads the word to Lindsay's parental units in the heartland? Discuss. [Videogum]

I had been wondering when the time would come that I would learn to spell "Stephanopoulos" without thinking, and now I know it was the moment I read that he was not sorry about asking Barry about flag pins. [Politico]

"We are, after a decade of reality TV and two years of YouTube, quite accustomed to seeing sad sacks spill their hearts on screen. This display feels so much more uncomfortable. Watch the guests on Jerry Springer and you think, "I can't believe she slept with his sister." Then you watch a while longer and you think, "Oh wait. I can." On the meaning of yesterday's psycho ex-wife YouTube sensation. [Wash Post]